


A Fond Farewell

by swordliliesandebony



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Babies, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, F/M, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Multi, Nightmares, Post-Canon, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-20 05:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordliliesandebony/pseuds/swordliliesandebony
Summary: "You surround yourself with ghosts, you can’t be surprised when they start hauntin’ you."--Prompto thinks it's a dream. Maybe a nightmare. He knows it's impossible, but he sure as hell wants to believe in this particular ghost.--Ignis doesn't believe in ghosts, but that doesn't stop them from haunting him.--A story in three parts, wherein a crownless guard find themselves thoroughly haunted.





	1. Prompto

**Author's Note:**

> While I am updating relationship/character tags as I post, I'll give a quick preview/rundown of who you'll find where. If you're in it for a particular ship or bro, you should be able to read only that given chapter without missing much. 
> 
> Chapter One- Prompto, Prompto/Noctis 
> 
> Chapter Two- Ignis, Ignis/Aranea
> 
> Chapter Three- Gladio, Gladio/Sania

It starts with nightmares. Things like this always do.

The nightmares themselves, the concept of waking up in a cold sweat, with stinging eyes and pounding heart and too little air in the room, none of that is abnormal. None of that is starting only when Prompto takes up his new residence nestled in the remnants of a couple hundred years worth of dead kings’ legacies. He’s used to the gripping terror that comes with darkness twisting into memories that cannot be buried or forgotten, that continue to exist in perfect clarity and down to the finest detail. He’s come anticipate phantom burning across old scars, twisting smiles, words that mock and sing and ring through his head hours after he’s awake. He’s had ten years of that. He’s learned to wake early with the sun, to let light he generally resents sweep away the visitors the night inflicts. He’s learned that Ignis will mix him a potion, if things get a little too severe, that will allow him a little bit of rest. He’s learned not to ask Aranea if any of those nightmares were ever really anything but.

It starts with a new nightmare, to be a bit more accurate. It starts with a different should-have-been king and a different curse from that fucking crystal. 

Prompto thinks, when he’s bolt upright in the bed, blankets across the floor and breeze at the window and night still surrounding, that he should have expected this. He’d been warned about this, and maybe the warning itself put the seed in his head, guaranteed its own fulfillment. It was Cid, by way of Cindy, who told him that ‘you surround yourself with ghosts, you can’t be surprised when they start hauntin’ you’. He remembers smiling and shrugging it off, maybe even pointing out that he’d never entirely unwrapped himself from the shadow his best friend left behind. Or, more likely, he just thought it and swore he would heed the advice while discounting it entirely, assuming it all abstract and metaphorical. Noct started haunting his thoughts before he ever died. Walking the halls, tracing faded footsteps, none of that was going to make it any worse. 

Except, apparently, it has.

The nightmare was where it started. The one where he breaks away from Ignis’s grasp on his wrist to turn his back on the ten-year-tardy dawn. The one where he swears he sees silver and sad smiles beside the body of his king, his best friend, his goddamn  _ only  _ love pinned so neatly to that throne. The one where bile chokes his throat and the air is thick with blood and he goes to summon up a pistol only to find his hand trembling and empty. The one where his knees crack and scream when he hits the floor before the throne. The one where he knew what would meet him in that sunlight, where he forgot how damn  _ bright  _ it was, where he just fucking wishes they could have gone without a little bit longer. Just a little bit longer.

He didn’t throw the blanket off himself in his sleep. He’s done that before, woken all tangled in sheets and drenched in sweat, with blankets and pillows strewn around him, tossed aside in the struggle of the nightmare. Not this nightmare, though. He hasn’t had this one before, save the time he was living it proper and full color. And he didn’t throw off the blanket. It was tugged away, and that’s what woke him, he’s certain of it. He’s certain because it’s laid in a relatively neat heap on the floor, beside the open window. And he’s certain, too, that he hadn’t left that window open.

Prompto stays sat in bed with a new panic flooding him, a fight or flight response where his body is still too exhausted and sleep-addled to make pick one side or the other and instead opts to lock up, to leave him with darting eyes and pounding heart and trembling fists clutching into the sheets. He tries to take stock. His eyes don’t adjust so quickly to the dark any more. It didn’t take long for that to fade. It’s been a month? Maybe two? Already, it feels like those ten years were nothing but another nightmare. Like someone clicked off pause on the world and it all resumed just so quickly. Not for him, though. His eyes do adjust, though not so quickly as when darkness was the rule rather than the exception, and he surveys the room.

The window is open and the breeze is cold, biting even on sweat-soaked skin. It takes a few moments for Prompto to realize this, to place the greater cause for all those pinpricks on his skin. The room is freezing, in fact. The moon is full and bright and the light that filters in through fluttering curtains is enough for him to see his breath go to mist in front of him. He waits longer, ears pricked to any sound that might indicate an intruder. The bed creaks when he shifts and shivers, his blood is rushing in his ears, but there’s nothing else, no sign of life but his own. He’s slow still to swing his legs over the bed and make his way to shut the damn window. Prompto has the presence of mind, at least, to check the latch when he swings the glass shut. 

There are two important details he takes in here. The first is that the latch is in perfect working order. That much shouldn’t come as a surprise. Ignis was hesitant to give Prompto the room in the first place. Prompto had pegged it out of a sense of respect or propriety, the simple fact that the childhood quarters of a fallen king weren’t appropriate living space for… whatever Prompto could be labeled as. Best friend? Covert consort? Illicit affair? He had given up on labels long ago. And it didn’t matter now any more than it mattered when Noctis was still alive, still prisoner to a fate they knew was cruel, if not by what measure. All such matters aside, Gladio had spoken to Prompto in private later, had asked after his state of mind. Things had been bleak. Things were still bleak. He said that’s what Specs was really concerned about, putting him up here. Prompto doesn’t think he reassured Gladio any on that front, but he does think he managed to put a bit of pity into his heart and that it was enough to convince Ignis, who wasted no time making sure the room was safe to inhabit despite his regularly reiterated best wishes. So, of course, the damn latch on the window was fine. 

The second detail is the more important one. The one that doesn’t strike Prompto until he’s stood in front of the open window, playing at the latch with his face all close, squinting through the dark. The breeze that whispers against his face is comfortable, light, and perhaps most importantly,  _ warm _ . The wrongness of that bit occurs to him and puts him stark in place again. Ironically enough, it sends a harsh chill through his body, all goosebumped arms and raised hairs. He tenses back up, that same half-panic that flooded him in bed. He’s listening again. There’s a sudden feeling flooding his brain, a sort of  _ don’t turn around, don’t look behind you,  _ refrain repeating heavy and quick, throbbing through his mind in time with his racing heart. His fingers tremble, warm breeze not quite warm enough, when he lets his hand away from the window.

Prompto makes an attempt at logic here, though it’s a half-hearted one at best. He still doesn’t turn around. He can’t. The cold is creeping in against his back, tugging at his shoulders, chilling him down to the bone while the summer night works opposite at the front. He feels dizzy. He feels like, if he turns around, he won’t be able to handle what he sees. He won’t be able to handle what he doesn’t see. There’s no winning and the discomfort is rising. He tells himself it’s a dream, a side effect of a day that made his brain spin. A dream-within-a-dream, because Noctis isn’t sitting dead before him any more. He pinches his arm. It hurts. Damn it all, it hurts. He tries for another direction of explanation. He maps out ceiling vents, a full half minute of near-calm washing as he considers this explanation, a long stretch of seconds before he recalls the limited power they’re still running on and the nonessential utilities that are thereby also nonexistent ones.

_ Fuck. _

He has to move. That fact is far too present in Prompto’s mind. He can stand there, half-naked and dripping sweat, looking over the moonlit city for a while, this much is true, but he can’t do it forever. He wonders briefly if he can do it until morning, until the sunlight has chased away whatever fear is holding him there. Because it is, of course, the dark that’s doing it. It’s so easy to be afraid of whatever’s lurking behind you in the night when you  _ know  _ what some of the things that used to lurk were. It’s easier still, when you’ve lost your sense for endless darkness. He has to turn around. Prompto draws in a breath, holds it. He wills his muscles to relax, wills his heart to stop fighting so valiantly against his ribs. He wills away the cold on his spine and, when he exhales, he finds that it  _ works _ .

He still doesn’t turn around immediately, but his hands aren’t gripping at the sill any more and the next breath comes deep and easy and barely shakes at all. It feels a lot, in fact, like someone has turned off the cool air and the summer night has filled it just as quickly. Prompto manages to laugh at himself. There must have been some mistake, some miscommunication. He’d talk to Ignis about it in the morning and that would be that. Someone would probably get a stern talking to about the importance of preserving the generator until power proper could be restored, and  _ he  _ would get a stern talking to, if he wasn’t careful, about letting his imagination run away from him; perhaps about finding a room that doesn’t hold quite so many memories. He’ll be careful. He nods to himself. It’s still late. The moon is high. It can’t be far past midnight, maybe one. Plenty of time to get back to sleep. He’ll go for the canteen, set into the ice bucket he’s made of the bathroom sink, and he’ll crawl back in bed. It was only the nightmares after all. He was only on edge because a new one struck him.

It’s as he’s turning that the door slams. 

He catches a glimpse of it in the reflection the moon casts on the window. Just something out of the corner of his eye. It’s the sound that gets him, that gunshot banging shut that makes him nearly jump from his skin. The first thought is that someone was in the room, that some intruder had stumbled upon him, had stripped him of blanket. Had... turned the air to ice? His eyes dart to the entry door, the one Ignis made sure to have fitted with locks and bolts for him, a concession to certain fears that wouldn’t fade so easily. The chain hangs secure, half-taut in its slot. If there were more light than the moon, he’s certain he would see all the rest in place just the same. 

He knows this, though. He knows, because he saw from the corner of his eye. He saw the door move- an impossibility for the entryway set in the corner farthest from the bed and the window. It was the closet. He’s shaking now, and he knows there’s no stopping it, but he’s no longer glued in place. That familiar instinct has turned soundly to fight. 

“Who’s there?” he wishes his voice would sound a little bit braver, but there’s a trembling quality to it when he calls out and it makes the demand sound admittedly less demanding. Prompto goes for the bedside table, for the small torch set face down on it. It’s a good light. It’s heavy and long, the sort of thing law enforcement would have carried in a world that’s been gone for a decade. When he clicks the heavy button near the belled end, the stream of light is bright to the point of near-blinding. He focuses directly on the closet door. He watches it swing open, slow on its hinge, just a few inches of lingering momentum from a latch that didn’t catch.

“I can see you. Just come out. Maybe I’ll let you live,” his voice is louder, but it’s higher too and Prompto knows damn well that the words are laughable. Reality is that he can’t see a damn thing. The open few inches of door, even with light shone against the wood, remain shadowed and dark. He doesn’t hear a damn thing; no shifting of weight, no breath but his own, no sign of whoever has hidden away inside. He takes a few steps, slow ones, shuffling to the side, to give him a better glimpse of what awaits.

“Pretty shitty burglar, y’know. There’s a  _ blind  _ guy right up the hall. He’s got way more expensive tastes, too,” Prompto almost wonders why he’s speaking at all. Almost. It’s a nervous habit, even- maybe especially- when he’s alone. The less silence, the better. He thinks, as he’s sidestepping the bed, changing his angle more, approaching the closet proper, it might even be a survival tactic. He’s pretty sure that’s what you were supposed to do if you wanted to survive; you talk to the intruder, make yourself human, make them care about you. He’s not convinced it’s working. He’s not convinced he cares. He is, after all, nearly close enough to touch the doorknob now, and he’s not made for the halls instead, he’s not screaming for help from anyone who might be close enough to hear.

When the range is right, he extends the torch arm, uses the head of the unwieldy thing to swing the door open. He jumps at the resulting noise, having pressed a little too hard and properly banged at the heavy wood. He nearly closes his eyes, but his instincts take hold and instead he raises the light high, aiming and prepared to strike. 

The closet is empty.

It’s not a particularly large one, and a quick step forward, a sweep at each wall confirms the initial finding. Well, mostly confirms. It’s empty of any unwelcome guests. The floor, on the other hand, is a heap of mess. It makes Prompto’s stomach churn suddenly and violently. There’s bile rising and choking at him when he sweeps the light over the littered ground. He has to swallow back, cough, sputter for breath. This isn’t a mess he made. This isn’t a mess he would ever fucking make.

There’s a quick sweep of the room before he proceeds, back to the window, the bed, to the en suite, and back to the door. Empty. He expects that by now, though. He still feels sick. Sicker, maybe. His hand reaches to the closet doorknob and his hand nearly recoils. The metal is like ice, like the air that hung over the bed, like the opposite of the atmosphere of the room otherwise. He’s barely surprised when he sinks to his knees and the chill overtakes him again.

The pack was a parting gift of sorts. Something that Prompto had clung to for days, unable to open. He knows that its contents are what lie before him. He knows because he can  _ smell  _ it. He can smell  _ him,  _ all thick and heavy in the air. Not blood on a floor or a body gone cold. Actually, properly,  _ him.  _ Trendy cologne that had started as a shot-in-the-dark high school gift and become a favorite. Hints of mint. A little bit of sweat. He lets the torch fall beside him, lets it keep the scene lit, doesn’t so much as flinch at the clatter of steel on hardwood. His own breath hangs in the air above the clothes. Prompto almost expects, almost wishes it to take his damn form before him. It doesn’t. 

He’s gentle when he lifts the shirt from the top of the pile. Soft, black, the smattered dark skulls. He lifts the fabric to his face and inhales and for a moment he’s not on the floor leaning into a closet at all. He’s in the tent, late in the morning when Ignis and Gladio have already gone to meet the sun. His face is pressed into Noct’s chest while Prompto pretends still to be asleep right with him. He can feel the warmth. He can hear his heart beating against his ear. He chokes against a sob, and reality, cold and icy, is back again.

Prompto shifts. He sits himself in the frame of the door, back pressed harsh and hard against the frame, and he works through the clothes in turn. He folds them, a little haphazard and mindless. He sets them in a pile, pats down each garment. He fights the memories. He fights the thoughts of the apartment and the nights they spent together in it, curled and twined and  _ happy.  _ He fights the morning they first left Insomnia, all bright futures and hope and a little bit of sadness for what they had to leave behind. Not knowing. Not having any fucking idea.

There are remnants of the trip, remnants of  _ Noctis  _ strewn in and beneath the clothing. A potion, clinking to the floor when shorts are set aside. A little clay figure, clumsy and vaguely cactuar-shaped. He remembers that too, and more tears fall. A joke, to be made part of Talcott’s collection. The figure has a friend of sorts in the pile, and that part makes Prompto freeze again. 

“What are you doing here?” he can’t help but breathe the question to the little teal creature, and he thinks it’s a good one. He knows it’s a good one. Because he knows there’s no way in hell that Noctis went to the end of the world without that particular companion- the only one he wouldn’t have to leave behind. He thumbs over the curved ears, the little horn, down the back as if to pet the toy properly. His vision is properly blurred here. It’s impossible. This is impossible. This is a dream. Somewhere between dream and nightmare. He can’t quite decide. It absolutely isn’t real. 

He looks back to the window, to the bed, and he tries to will a spectre properly into existence through his tears. That’s how it’s meant to work, right? You figure out it’s a dream, then you take control of it. Nothing happens. Noctis doesn’t appear in some shimmering facsimile on the mattress. He doesn’t appear at all. It makes the hurt, the sadness, go to anger, because Prompto  _ knows  _ it isn’t real. He knows it can’t be. It’s more than the icy air, pressing against his tear-streaked face and running through his hair. It’s more than Carbuncle, a strangely comforting weight in his hand. It’s more than slamming doors and strewn out clothes that convince Prompto he’s asleep or dead or simply gone mad.

It’s the sheet of paper beneath where the statue sat. Because it’s not a sheet of paper at all. It’s a photo, creased sharp down the center, battered around the edges as if it’s gone through hell in someone’s pocket. It’s face down, but maybe it’s better that way, because Prompto knows what he’ll see if he flips it.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Almost makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If blondie isn’t onto something,” Aranea’s voice trails the words. There’s something just a little bit chilly there, too, dragged in perhaps from the other room. Ignis tries to shake it, but it’s impossible for his expression not to turn toward a frown when he considers the idea.
> 
> “I assure you, dear, that would be a first,” Ignis manages a light chuckle through the reassurance. He manages, he thinks, not to let on that the idea crossed his mind as well.
> 
> \--  
> Ignis doesn't believe in irrational, childish things such as ghosts. This doesn't stop them from haunting him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter will probably make exactly no sense after December. For the time being, it contains Episode Ignis trailer spoilers, so if you are avoiding them please avoid this! 
> 
>  
> 
> A quick reminder that each chapter in this story is fairly self-contained. You can easily ignore the first chapter without losing too much in this one. Pairings per chapter are:
> 
> Chapter One- Prompto, Prompto/Noctis
> 
> Chapter Two- Ignis, Ignis/Aranea
> 
> Chapter Three- Gladio, Gladio/Sania
> 
> With each chapter focusing primarily on the mentioned bro and various levels of crossover shippiness between them. :)

Ignis wakes to a scream, shrill and ear-splitting and incredibly familiar.

It doesn’t alarm him. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t do too much beyond drawing a sigh, a shift in the bed, an arm drawing a pillow briefly over his face in an attempt to muffle. The bed is going unsettled around him and he could swear the springs are groaning just the same as Aranea is when she’s pressing blankets into a heap between them. It’s still dark, still the middle of the night he thinks, and he has to catch and remind himself that such a distinction isn’t entirely a matter of semantics any more. Well, not to most people.

“I can take care of it,” his voice is thick with sleep still and gives the very distinct tone of someone who can, but would really rather not in fact, take care of anything. He’s getting up all the same though, making a grope at the bedside table so he can toy with the monitor, turn down the stereo in which the screams are being broadcast. They can hear her just fine without it when it gets to this sort of yelling, after all. Ignis had, when Aranea announced her discovery of a good few boxes of ‘baby stuff’, been terribly enthused by the idea of the little one-way functioning. Funny how quickly the shine wore off.

“I’m up anyway. She’s hungry. Unless you’ve worked out a way to deal with  _ that _ …”

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Ignis says immediately. It’s a difficult bit of balancing here, and it’s only become more difficult as time has progressed. He could swear that they had a good, happy, said-to-be-beautiful,  _ quiet _ baby just a few weeks ago.  These things, as he’s come to understand, go in phases. He’s ready for another phase. Preferably, he’s ready for a phase where either of them can get some meaningful sleep. Perhaps, if he’s being especially wishful in his thinking, a phase where power has been at least partially restored and they might have the luxury of refrigeration. 

Ignis thinks he might have been well-served to ask the time. Aranea has a tendency to rise early, even without any piercing alarms, and often well before the sun. He does his best to maintain a similar schedule, but on occasions like this, it becomes more difficult. He can ask the time, and usually he’ll get a straightforward answer. If it’s still the middle of the night, Aranea might deign to tell him to go back to sleep without providing further insight. It’s a sweet intention and it’s utterly infuriating. He suspects they’re closer to morning than not at this particular juncture, but he doesn’t rise from the bed. He doesn’t allow himself back to the pillows either, though.

Adjusting to this new world Noctis left for them hasn’t been easy for anyone. Ignis can’t begin to count the number of people left in a worse space than him through this new period of recovery. Still, the fact of the matter is, certain points have struck him as especially difficult. He remembers feeling that first dawn, the warmth on his skin that had been so long entirely unfamiliar. And he  _ had  _ been able to make out shadows, on his right side at least, where there had lingered some hope for recovery far longer than was rational. Shadows, however, aren’t his daughter’s face. They aren’t the expressions he had spent a great deal of his life learning to read. They aren’t much of anything, really. It’s the sort of thing he’s reminded of all too often, all too clearly, and especially in moments like this. Shadows are, quite simply, shadows. Ghosts. Nothing to cling to, nothing to pay more mind than is necessary to dispel any notions of lurking demons. 

The ghosts, at any rate, are banished easily enough. The monitor shifts from familiar piercing wails to a harsh static. Ignis’s thumb works by reflex to turn the volume low, a groan catching in his throat at the sudden new noise. He shouldn’t be surprised, really. It was a miracle the monitor was working in the first place, an entire lifetime sitting between now and its last use. Still, just one more item on what feels an endless list of inconveniences, troubles, concerns. He winces. His finger must twitch through its sudden cramp, as the static picks up again, louder, as if the monitor has been turned up to its maximum volume. Pain shoots from his finger, down his wrist, turns his hand to seize up.

Another common complication. Another ghost. The static fills his head, mingles with the pain, renders him deaf for the moment, an entirely unfair pairing to his everyday blindness. There is a vision, in his mind of course as all vision is now, of a broken city. A smirking face. The chill of water, scent of salt and fire and foul corruption. His arm is burning, intense and relentless, pure fire tracing veins. An image of dead kings. No, not kings, just the one. Dead on the wet ground. Dead on the throne. He wonders if he’s dying, too. 

It stops all at once, with his name spoken through it, giving all else to silence. More specifically, a hand snakes through his and flips the monitor off, tosses it aside. Cold fingers, cold arm against his. He shudders. He turns his head on instinct, politeness he likes to think, breathes low and uneven, air trembling on his lips. The touch chases away the fire. He’s certain now, that he’s dying, by virtue of the voice speaking his name. Only an illusion. It shifts when the word is repeated.

“ _ Ignis, _ ” Aranea’s voice has an edge to it, all tinged with concern and hints of sleep-addled annoyance. Still, he relaxes to it, and after a moment’s hesitation his arm snakes around her waist and his lips meet her shoulder. He moves similarly to brush fingers light against the feather soft hair at their daughter’s forehead. The crying has stopped abruptly for once, and she only barely fussing while Ignis gives her the little greeting, soothes her as Aranea adjusts to nurse.

“You’re cold,” he turns his attention to Aranea easily enough. Whatever just happened to him, Ignis would be happiest to ignore it entirely. Unlikely a possibility, more something that will be stuck in the forefront of his mind for some time, but he prays that Aranea will let it go. She’s the tense one now, though, beneath gooseflesh and a heavy sigh.

“It was freezing in there,” Aranea sounds, well, still concerned. Maybe concern over something else at this point. It feels a little bit like there’s something she’s not saying, some other point that’s weighing on her mind. Ignis doesn’t have time to guess at what that is, though. If he was trying to change the subject, she is only flipping it back with an absolutely frightening ease, “your hand’s bothering you again.”

It isn’t a question. Ignis slowly withdraws the embrace in response to it. Aranea doesn’t stop him, but she adjusts her arms and cradles the apparently exceedingly hungry newborn in her arms- or, he imagines she does in any case from all the shifting and sighing- until her right hand is free and twining with his left. Ignis winces only for a moment before he presses that instinct away. 

He doesn’t care to focus on the pain when it comes. And, quite honestly, this is the first it has flared since that first night back in the city. Ignis was never so foolish as to think it would fade entirely, as to think that some lack of magic in the world would mean the cure to this particular ailing. Perhaps, though, he hoped it might mean exactly that. He’s been led to understand that there is no particular scarring, no great tells beyond prominent veins and tensed-up tendons and a grimace that seems to run his whole body. That, he thinks, is all the worse.

There are no specifics between them on this injury. Aranea never asks- talking about Altissia is a nonstarter. It’s too easy to throw Ignis into the disarray of unbidden memories, harsh and ringing flashbacks. She doesn’t seem to mind, not outwardly or overtly, but she worries, and that might be worse. Ignis doesn’t do well with things like overt concern or hastily-covered pity. He has, quite honestly, seldom given pause to his own well-being. His life was dedicated so specifically to a single person, a single cause, for the bulk of its span. Now, with that duty ended, it has all only shifted. His concern is for Aranea and for the baby at her breast and remains far from himself. He prefers it that way. He would quite prefer if nobody would differ in that regard.

“Only a brief ache. It’s passed now,” his voice takes on a tone of reassurance and his fingers squeeze at Aranea’s. He can sense the tension there, sitting between them unspoken and unexamined. She won’t bring it up now, not more than that statement. Her hand shifts though and thumbs over his palm, deep circles intended to soothe. Okay, perhaps he appreciates that much. Still, he finds words to distract, to shift the focus, “the nursery is cold,” he endeavors toward a point she can be distracted by, “it’s fine in here. A draft to be fixed?” the attempt seems to work.

“I don’t think so. It’s the strangest thing. It was all centered around the crib. Just...stagnant and  _ cold _ ,” Aranea shudders with her words and Ignis wonders if it isn’t more than just the lingering chill. Her hand is still cool, bordering on icy really, from only a moment in the room. It gives him pause, just as her tone does, “I needed to get out of there. It was,” she pauses, reaching for a word, “bizarre. I had the strangest feeling. I can’t really explain.”

If the explanation itself hadn’t turned Ignis’s mind toward concern, the very concept of Aranea being unable to explain  _ anything  _ certainly has. She’s good with her words and she’s particularly cognizant of her feelings. Sure, they both keep a secret or two from each other, but that’s only natural, only human. This is something else. It’s not that she doesn’t want to explain, Ignis can tell so much easily enough. She really, properly cannot. Now, he thinks, he’s the one with the strangest feeling.

“I’ll have someone by to look into it. We’ll move Vittoria and the cot in here in the meantime,” Ignis speaks with a sense of assurance that isn’t entirely natural. The truth here is that there’s something terribly disconcerting about it all. The static on the monitor, the flash of pain, the voice belonging to another when Aranea returned to the bed; they shake Ignis, reel his mind, twist his stomach. He doesn’t share any of that.

“Almost makes you wonder, doesn’t it? If blondie isn’t onto something,” Aranea’s voice trails the words. There’s something just a little bit chilly there, too, dragged in perhaps from the other room. Ignis tries to shake it, but it’s impossible for his expression not to turn toward a frown when he considers the idea.

“I assure you, dear, that would be a first,” Ignis manages a light chuckle through the reassurance. He manages, he thinks, not to let on that the idea crossed his mind as well.

 

* * *

  
  


Ignis did not want to call Prompto over on this matter.

It’s nothing personal, really. He likes to keep Prompto close at hand, truth be told. He feels a responsibility, perhaps a compulsion, to keep an eye- figuratively, of course- on on him. It’s an old instinct at this stage. He’s been drawn to concern over him for many years now. It started somewhere very close to when Prompto and Noctis struck up their friendship. Friendship, as it happens, being an entirely underwhelming term for it. Perhaps it’s because he was so aware of that particular fact so early on; or perhaps it was simply the fact that his presence brought Noct so much happiness beyond any complications and improprieties. 

Whatever the reason, Prompto strikes him as a charge just as much as Noctis did, just as much as his own family does now in some regards. There were promises, hushed in the night, in that final stretch of endless night, and Ignis is nothing if not loyal to such oaths. Prompto’s safety, his well being, is still quite high among his concerns, everything considered. Especially so in days that are no doubt endlessly trying on him. Which is why, quite simply, Ignis did not want to consult him on this case.

The fact of the matter is, he has no better recourse left.

There is nothing wrong with the nursery. The chill, the ill-ease Aranea caught in it, has not returned. Not to the nursery, in any case. Ignis had Gladio by first to take a look over the situation. They theorized over vents and insulation and the direction of the wind. None of the ideas held against scrutiny. Ignis had planted himself in the doorframe while Gladio paced the room, peered over the crib, attempted to put some sense to the occurrence. Nothing came of it. They found their night ending in aged whisky and wild speculation and, finally, Aranea recalling Prompto’s recent panic while telling them quite harshly to keep it down. 

Ignis tried to brush it off again. Gladio seemed more intrigued. Ignis hoped, at first, that it might have been the drink that had turned the thought to a rational one in his mind. This hasn’t been the case. There have been pledges of research to follow- Ignis isn’t quite so handy in the library these days- and more speculation that feels just as wild. It puts a certain weight to Ignis’s heart. He’s far too inclined toward rationality to entertain notions as childish as ghosts. Yet, all the same, they seem to cling and haunt him with an inexplicable expertise. 

He wouldn’t have called Prompto over about this at all, had Aranea not insisted. And, well, had conditions not escalated. 

The chill was the first point, the obvious one. It chased them into their bedroom right along with the baby girl and her tiny cot. Ignis was woken by it first, the whole set up placed at his side of the bed. It was, quite simply, as Aranea had halfway described that first night it occurred. There was no breeze, no open window or obvious draft. Just an impossible, bone-chilling cold that lingered in place between Ignis and a happily sleeping baby. She, in any case, was unaffected by the sudden drop. When Ignis went to check her, to adjust blankets and run fingers over a plum cheek, there was only warmth, a string of giggles rather than any fussing. Aranea would find the same the next night. Disconcerting is a shallow start to the sense left by it.

The other points were small ones each on their own, but troubling when set together all the same. Water warmed for coffee in the morning, while Aranea still slept. Chain already set on the door when Ignis would walk to lock up, certain he had forgotten. And toys, ones that Aranea at first swore that Prompto needed to stop bringing by. Ones that Prompto swore weren’t part of his utter myriad of gifts. Ones that Ignis could thumb over, could ask a description of, could recognize with jolts through his stomach and his chest and fingers left trembling around little plush offerings. Ghosts, he had been reminding himself, were nothing but children’s stories born of adults’ grief. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Still, he called Prompto and Prompto came, is now sitting at their little dining table likely with far too much sugar being poured into his coffee. Ignis can  _ sense  _ that sort of sacrilege. Or, more accurately, he can hear metal scraping grain and can recall Prompto as having no proper appreciation for the stuff. 

“I told you I wasn’t making it up,” Prompto says with a certain tone of petulence. Ignis can’t entirely blame him there, though there’s still a fine spike of annoyance in his gut at it. Prompto has a mastery of pouting, and Ignis can for once be glad he’s not able to catch the expression that must be paired with the words. Aranea is at his side and she makes a noise that lands right on his own feeling toward the matter. She  _ can  _ see it. She can probably see through it, too, bless her. 

“I never thought you were making it up, Prompto. Grief has strange ways of manifesting. Whatever you saw-”

“-you saw too...felt. Whatever. You wouldn’t be bringing it up if you didn’t,” Prompto, for once, is the one to cut to the chase. It makes Ignis go very still, very quiet. It makes Aranea laugh, just a little bit. Vittoria, blessing of all blessings, is cooperating with the concept of naptime for once. It’s spared them a bit of oohing and awwing on Prompto’s part, though Ignis must admit he doesn’t mind that quite so much. The baby seems to like Prompto, as much as babies are inclined to like any given person, and likewise she seems to lift his spirits. It’s not a bad thing, but it’s a thing quite inconvenient for the matter at hand.

“I’ll admit, there have been some,” Ignis pauses a beat, an attempt to sift out the correct word. Aranea jumps in though, and he really does appreciate the fact that she cuts through his care, going right for the heart of things as well. She’s far better at brevity than he could ever hope to be.

“Weird shit’s been happening. We wanted to know if you noticed anything else, after that first night,” silence follows Aranea’s statement, something spoken with more care than she might generally give her tone. She and Prompto, at the very least, seem to have some vague understanding of each other. Ignis wishes, he really does, that he could say the same. As it stands, his attempts at protection or advice are more often than not met with resistance and frustration. He can’t entirely blame Prompto, but he also can’t entirely grasp at what’s going through his head. It’s a source of tension for them both.

Ignis hears the light scrape of spoon against mug, a shifting around at the table while Prompto goes to take a sip of his drink. It remains otherwise silent. Prompto, he assumes, is gathering his thoughts. Ignis isn’t convinced this is a good thing where Prompto is concerned. It’s certainly not something he was terribly well known for doing in the past, though Ignis is first to admit that a great many things has changed over the years they’ve known one another.

“Weird shit is always happening,” there’s a surprisingly dull quality to Prompto’s voice. He’s speaking slowly, putting care and thought into his words and it’s about as troubling as anything Ignis has experienced so far, “you basically said I was full of shit when I told you what happened to me, so it’s kinda funny for you to call me about this, y’know,” Ignis is properly shocked by the edge that lines those words. It’s entirely unlike him; or, more accurately, it was at one point entirely unlike him. Ignis can no longer deny that, just as Prompto provided a thoroughly positive impact on Noct’s attitude, the case seems to have been just the same in reverse.

“I absolutely did  _ not  _ say you were ‘full of shit’,” Ignis knows his voice is pitching in a dangerous direction. He feels Aranea’s hand close on his knee beneath the table but he ignores it. He and Prompto do not have these conversations. They do all they can, in fact, to ignore the big dead elephant in the room. Ignis hasn’t been sleeping though, hasn’t been thinking terribly rationally at all. Whatever is happening, he can’t help but believe Prompto is involved. There is a part of him, and maybe this part is illogical and irrational and sleep-starved but all the same, that wonders if it isn’t some ploy to garner their belief. He was so damn adamant, after all, over his experience. Ignis pushes through the thoughts, “losing Noctis was hard on all of us. Understandably harder on you. Whatever you experienced, I’m sure  _ you  _ believe. As I’ve said, grief-”

“-then why isn’t it just grief playing tricks on you, too?” Prompto interrupts him. His hand, Ignis assumes at least, presses hard and flat on the table with a thud and a following tremor, “Oh, right. You’ve had your time to grieve. Ten years, right? No, wait. It was longer than that. You knew all along what was coming. Probably nothing for you to grieve at all, huh?”

“ _ Prompto _ ,” Aranea pipes in here, a bit of a plea to her voice. It’s another unsettling point, another uncharacteristic softness. Ignis would appreciate it if he weren’t so damn tired, so damn frustrated. This, he will point out later, is why he didn’t want to ask Prompto. This irrationality, this leap to emotion. It’s not doing them any good.

“Would you like to discuss how it felt? How it feels to stand at someone’s side, guiding them toward an inevitable end? I’m more than happy to share my grief with you, Prompto. You have no  _ concept  _ of what I sacrificed,” his voice is rising further. Ignis is a little bit surprised by the anger rushing so suddenly through him. Prompto has, intentionally or not, managed to press precisely the wrong button. The one that has been flashing and blaring warnings and flooding Ignis with guilt for longer than he can begin to say. The implication there is heavy, though. The very thought that he didn’t care for Noct, that he isn’t hurting here, too…

“I’d love to discuss how it feels. How  _ I  _ feel. I’d like to talk to  _ someone  _ who knows, Ignis, I really would,” there’s emotion thick in Prompto’s voice. It blows a little bit of the wind from his sails. He can almost see the shine in Prompto’s eyes. He feels Aranea’s hand tighten a little in place. His slides over it, a little weak, a little loose, “thing is, I’m the only one. Everyone else-  _ everyone _ \- knew what was coming. They didn’t have all those dumb fantasies about some big, happy reunion gettin’ them through all that darkness. Nobody else thought we’d get a happy ending. You  _ all  _ knew and you all decided not to tell me.”

Yeah. Wind and sails utterly disconnected. Ignis has known, deep down, that this was boiling beneath the surface. He had known that, eventually, it would be a conversation they’d be having. It’s not one he ever wanted to have though, truth be told. 

It wasn’t as if the decision was an easy one, keeping Prompto in that second layer of dark. Prompto’s position was different than his own or Gladio’s or anyone else’s for that matter. There was no obligation, there were no oaths. It was a different sort of loyalty that kept him optimistic, kept him at least faking a smile through those dark years. And it was that, that unwavering fucking faith, that made it impossible for Ignis to warn him. He’d agonized over it, and that’s no grand exaggeration. Aranea knows as much. Gladio, too, shared evenings of discussion and concern over it. In the end, they couldn’t be the ones to break him. It was too dangerous. The time was never right. They couldn’t guess how he would respond. And if Noctis did come back- and there were many nights none of them seemed certain it would happen, not in their lifetimes at least- to find Prompto gone? Ignis couldn’t bear that, either.

“I apologize,” it is hard, almost impossible, for Ignis to make the words come out straightforward, without any drop of sarcasm, without any of the anger his voice was taking. He can’t say that he regrets the decision, but the fact of the matter? “My intention was not to hurt you. Your optimism… I couldn’t take that away from you, however cruel it may seem now. And…” Ignis pauses, he hesitates, and he thinks he should stop there.

“And,” Prompto doesn’t let the thought hang, though. His voice still trembles, though Ignis wants to believe from that single word that it has calmed somewhat at least. He sighs and he shakes his head, he closes his hand just a little bit more tightly around Aranea’s.

“He deserved the chance to tell you. You were,” he halts again, for just a moment. Why, now of all times, does he find the words so hard to grasp? They’ve always been his strong suit, but now that they’re so essential, they escape him. He feels inclined to scream. He’s exhausted in so many ways, and his mind is working at half-speed, to be optimistic, “precious to him. Very much so. You know that, Prompto. He had to be the one to say it.” 

Ignis is almost relieved for the silence that follows. There is, for a moment, more scraping of metal against ceramic, more delicate swallows at a drink across the table. Then there is further shuffling and, before him on the table, a peculiar bit of percussion. A small object being set before him. Ignis is hesitant to put a hand to it. A small bit of plastic. A figure of some sort? The shape seems familiar, but he can’t quite drum up the image in his head.

“I found this that night, in the closet. In his things,” Prompto says his explanation, voice rough and raw, “Carbuncle. You remember it, right?” The word clicks neatly into place and Ignis feels the breath go from him for a moment. He draws his other hand from Aranea’s to inspect the item more closely. He finds that, to his memory, Prompto isn’t lying. That, perhaps beyond any talk of ghosts or hauntings or grief or sacrifice, is most impossible of all. Noctis would have pocketed the thing, the little luck charm from his father, wouldn’t he? Ignis is sure of it. His throat feels dry, burning, a bit tight. His chest follows suit. And fire drifts from the figure up his finger, up his arm, a bit more subdued but just as present as that first peculiar night. 

“Packed away? In his things…” Ignis is only mildly surprised by how rough his voice is. 

“I don’t get it. A toy?” Aranea speaks up, though perhaps speaking up isn’t quite the term. Her voice is low and inquisitive, perhaps a bit confused. Ignis can’t blame her there. It is, to any rational onlooker, in fact just a toy. 

“Iggy can explain it better,” Prompto sounds defeated, but there is just a hint of hope with that unbearable endearment of a nickname, “listen. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m totally off the hinges since Noct…” his voice breaks. He can’t quite say the word: ‘died’. Ignis doesn’t fault him there. He can scarcely say it himself, “...whatever. The point is, all that stuff happened and I woke up and I found that sitting on a photo-”

“-what photo?” Ignis doesn’t know entirely why he’s asking the question. What answer does he expect? What answer does he  _ want _ ? And, truly, does any answer Prompto could give him matter? Can he  _ trust  _ any answer Prompto gives him?

“Just… a photo. From back then. It doesn’t matter,” Prompto says this in a tone that all but screams to Ignis that it does, in fact, matter quite a lot. He doesn’t push it, but he doesn’t push it because he thinks he finds his answer in that tone and he’s feeling chilled down to his core. He pulls his hands from the figure, allows Aranea to seize it for inspection, “I think it’ll help you get it, though. Give it a little while. Sleep on it. Whatever. I want it back, but I think you’ll understand if you keep it for a little bit.”

“This cryptic shit doesn’t suit you, sunshine,” Aranea still has the kid’s gloves on though and it even draws something very similar to a laugh from Prompto. 

“Maybe not. I dunno how else to say it, though. Just try to trust me here? Maybe it won’t mean anything to you. I don’t get any of this at all. Maybe I really am losing it,” a scoff, something damn near physically painful to Ignis, something that has his mouth opening to speak, “just… hold onto it for a little bit. I think you’ll feel better after. But, like I said, I want it back when you’re done. Okay?”

There’s a final clink of a mug down to the table and the harsh scoot of Prompto’s chair against the hardwood. This, of all things, wins a bit of fussing from across the room. Aranea’s hand shifts to Ignis’s arm and she rises at once to tend to that. Ignis wants to say that he’ll go, but there’s still Prompto to deal with, even if he’s on his way out the door.

“You can stay, Prompto. I shouldn’t have… well, things have been tense. I apologize. And I daresay Vittoria wouldn’t mind a visit with her favorite uncle,” Ignis hopes, at the very least, that he might win a smile there. Only a sigh comes his way though, and it’s still one that travels toward the door.

“Next time, maybe. I need some time to myself,” Prompto’s voice, though more even than before, still carries a wavering quality. Still carries an ability to make Ignis ache over it.

“Not too much time, Prompto. It’s a nice day. We have those now. You should enjoy it,” he feels a bit with the near-command like when they were all much younger. When Noctis was still there, when Ignis would sweep into their apartment and shoo them off so he could actually get a bit of cleaning done. More haunting memories there. He can only imagine that they haunt Prompto, too, though they never seem to speak of that.

“Right. Yeah, I’ll think about it. Just call me when you’ve got it, alright?” and, just as quickly, Prompto is gone. Ignis is left with more questions than before in his absence and a familiar chill setting in. He seizes up the little figure- his right hand only, this time- and pretends the sensation doesn’t follow him across the room.

 

* * *

 

Dreams have a strange way of sneaking up on a person, even when they make no attempt to disguise themselves. Ignis finds, in his case, this is especially true. He won’t question, until an alarm or a baby starts wailing and drawing him back to reality, how it is that he can look around and  _ see _ where he is. Further, he doesn’t question how he’s walking toward the ocean alongside a luxurious little hotel that has seen none of the past decade’s destruction. He doesn’t wonder how he got here, or how his feet know where to take him. It’s all perfectly logical in the moment. Reality will start peeking at the edges later, but this is simply the way dreams go. Your mind gives you a setting, a scenario, and you play through it happily enough.

The scenario, after the first few steps, involves a small beast all big eyes and bright fur and shining horn, offering up excited chirps and an intrinsic knowledge that he’s heading in the right direction. It’s a good dream- though Ignis, of course, doesn’t realize just yet that it is one. The sun is bright and pleasantly warm. There’s salt on the breeze and the sand is soft beneath his feet, which he is very suddenly aware are bare. He follows the creature, and somehow, he knows precisely where it will lead. He finds no great surprise when it squeaks again and bounds the last few yards between Ignis and the shoreline proper, to nestle itself quite happily on the shoulder of someone looking out on the horizon.

Likewise, he knows who the someone is. Maybe he even knows that he’s not looking at the horizon so much as the island set on it, not terribly far from their coast. Ignis doesn’t peer over at him, though he wants to quite badly. He only sits at his side, legs spread out so the ocean can nip at his feet. There’s a sense of calm here that Ignis can appreciate, something he’s been longing for without realizing as much at all.

“I haven’t been here in years,” Ignis, for once in his life, doesn’t think too hard about his words. They come naturally, casually. Maybe it’s always been like that with Noct, though. They have, after all, been together since they were children. He finds himself smiling. It takes a moment for his brain to catch up, to fill in a blank or two as to why it all feels so bittersweet.

“Yeah. Guess you wouldn’t have. Too bad. It’s nice here,” it’s a good feeling, Ignis decides at once, to hear Noctis’s voice. It’s been far too long. Sadness creeps in again, but his smile remains. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he understands that this can’t be real in the most literal sense of the term. He ignores that fact, though. It’s okay, just this once, right?

Neither man speaks for what feels like a long time. Or maybe it doesn’t feel like any time at all. Ignis’s perception is a little skewed here, a little uneven. The world is still blurry and confusing around the edges. There are logical points that he should be questioning. He doesn’t bother, though. This time feels precious. It feels a little silly, he realizes all at once, to be wasting it with silence, comfortable or not.

“Is this what Prompto meant?” Ignis can’t say why this is the first question to come to his mind. There are probably a thousand more pressing ones at any given moment. When he finally turns to look at Noct, he’s wearing a sad sort of smile too. The feeling, Ignis decides, must be contagious. Or perhaps it’s simply the correct feeling to have in a situation like this.

“Prompto…” Noct’s voice sounds sadder still. His head dips downward for a moment, then lifts quite suddenly, “yeah, I guess it is. He didn’t hafta be so weird about it.”

“You were there for that,” not a question. Doesn’t need to be. Ignis knew Noctis was there, deep down or in the back of his mind, in the spots where logic doesn’t quite reach, where everything goes on feeling. He wouldn’t admit it to himself, not outside this impossible place, but some part of him had known maybe right from the start.

“I’m there for a lot of stuff. Only fair that I get to see how it all turned out,” Noctis’s smile, for just a moment, goes a little bit less sad. It’s a brief flash through his eyes, close to that genuine smile that crinkles them up around the edges, draws them near shut. Ignis feels his heart catch somewhere around his throat. He has to look away.

“I’m not entirely inclined to believe fairness factors in here,” his voice is a little bitter. He can’t quite help it.

“No, I guess not,” Noctis agrees all the same. He sighs, and silence follows for just a moment or two, “you didn’t tell me about Aranea. I wouldn’t have asked you to come.”

“Precisely why. I had a duty to you, regardless of anything else,” the duty came with guilt, of course. Aranea fought him over it, by far the greatest of their arguments. It ended with a begrudging, ‘you even think of dying, I’ll pull you back to kill you myself’ and one of those kisses that outright  _ hurt _ while his hands lingered against her horribly full belly. It all turned out in the end. It was still, logically speaking, a terrible risk.

“Kinda fucked up, you know. Least you don’t have to worry about that any more.”

“Not by choice.”

“I would’ve fired you anyway. You’ve got more important things now,” Noctis, for his part, doesn’t sound sad about that in the least. Ignis chances a gaze in his direction and, just so, he’s smiling properly now. It’s confusing, frustrating even. More than either of those things though, it’s relieving. It untangles knots in the pit of Ignis’s stomach that he hadn’t realized had tightened so violently in the first place, “kid’s pretty damn cute. You should be proud.”

“I am,” Ignis can respond at once this time, without any lingering doubt, without any uncertainty. He can smile, too, because they’re touching on the one undoubtedly bright point in his life, “it really has been you, then. I owe Prompto an apology, I suppose.”

“I probably owe you one. I didn’t mean to make things worse. Just wanted to see how everyone was doing. Can’t exactly call and check in. Afterlife doesn’t have the best reception.”

“So I’ve noticed,” Ignis recalls, a brief flash of memory, the static over the monitor. It makes him smile. It nearly makes him laugh. He recalls to, though, the ache in his hand. He lifts the limb, an echo of that pain present at the thought. Somehow, he’s not surprised to see the state. Ash and fire, spreading from his fingers up his arm, pulsing, painless in this place in any case.

“You lied to me,” Noctis nods at Ignis’s arm. Ignis doesn’t, by some miracle, feel too much guilt.

“I did what I had to. You were dealing with a lot. Your father, Insomnia, Lady Lunafreya…” Ignis lets his voice trail. He may question his actions in regards to Prompto, to the truths he avoided there, but it’s hard to do the same for Noctis. They got to the place they needed in the end, after all. If a ghost is upset with him, it’s hard to say it isn’t a fair trade.

“You take too much on yourself. You’ve always done that. Guess it’s my fault too, though. I depended on you way too much.”

“I was there precisely for that purpose, Noct,” Ignis pauses and he looks at his hand, at his arm again. He’s seen this before, in dreams. In nightmares. He begins to wonder if this is one of those. The fear doesn’t strike him though, not the way it usually does. It’s more curiosity than anything else. That atmosphere of peace set around them really is encapsulating. “I’ll admit, this seems to be cause for concern.”

“It’s not. I took the ring down with me,” Noctis’s voice is even, maybe just a hint of teasing bubbling as he continues, “hate to break it to ya, Iggy, but that one’s all in your head. Grief, right?”

“I already said I would apologize. No need to rub it in. That… is a relief, though,” maybe Ignis won’t believe it when he’s gone from this place, but in the moment it feels right. It feels like the truth, like the best explanation. There’s no denying that the ring is gone, the magic right along with it. It would follow that whatever curse might have been laid on him, the only remaining damage is what has already been done. They become quiet again, both of them. Ignis has a sudden awareness, terrible and twisting, that time here is running short. He tries to think of what to say but, quite honestly, simply having a chance to speak seems to have erased those words.

“Ignis… I…” Noctis seems to be struggling with words here as well. Ignis looks at him, arranges his face in a way that he thinks has always come across as inviting, “...I need to ask you for another favor. Just this last one.”

“Anything.”

“I need you to keep looking after Prompto. Let him know he’s not as alone as he feels. He’s not… I’m worried, you know. I mean, you know everything. Of course, you know.”

“I do. And I will,” Ignis feels sadness rising again. His vision is blurring by heated degrees. He blinks back against it, “you won’t be visiting him any longer, I assume.”

“I’m making it worse. I thought it would help, but I’m only hurting him. Actually, I’m not even sure I thought it would help. I just needed to see him. Pretty selfish, huh?” He laughs, a sad little huff. It tears at Ignis’s heart yet again.

“You’ve grown.”

“A little late for that. Just… make sure he’s safe for me, okay?” Noct’s voice is pleading in such a way that Ignis knows, even if he wanted to, he wouldn’t be able to deny the request.

“I swear it,” and Ignis does. He swears and he means it to the last.

“Help him move on, or whatever. Find him something to do. Or someone. I don’t know. He needs to stay out of that head of his, though. And, uh, same goes for you. You’ve got a family now, so don’t go getting lost in all this old stuff,” Noct’s voice wavers. It’s quiet, barely audible over the lapping waves. The edges that were blurred are falling away, going dark. Ignis nods, all too aware that their time here is up.

“Thank you, Noct. I won’t let you down.”

“You never have.”

 

 

Ignis wakes, as he does so damn often, to a scream. 


End file.
